Dara Howell nabs Olympic team invitation

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Dara Howell, left, and teammate Kaya Turski are all smiles after winning silver and gold respectively at the world freestyle ski championships earlier this month. The two have been invited to compete for Canada at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

HUNTSVILLE - Dara Howell has her long-awaited ticket that will take her to her dream.
Now she has to wait to the new year to see if her ticket will be punched.
It comes of little surprise that Howell was named to the Canadian Olympic freestyle ski team last week. The 19-year-old Huntsville resident and slopestyle ski star was given a provisional invitation to join the team, which will be officially formed in January.
Howell, who won silver at the world championships earlier this month, will join world champion and fellow Canadian Kaya Turski as one of the two invitees to the team. The news means that Powell has achieved her lifelong dream of making it to the Olympics, which will be held next year in Sochi, Russia.
According to her father Doug, Howell earned the invitation by excelling in some of the sport’s major events this ski season, which included the world championships.
However, he said, Howell has been invited to join the team and undoubtedly will be on the final roster when it is announced in January.
“It is as good as gold,” he said, “unless (The Canadian Freestyle Ski Association) change their minds”
Like a proud father, Doug is obviously confident about his daughter’s ability to maintain her position on the team.
“I’m going to go out and buy my ticket to the Olympics right now,” he said.
Doug said that the national team will have expectations of Howell in the coming ski season, but added they will not push her in the months leading up to the January final roster announcement because they want her to remain safe and healthy for next year’s Olympics.
“By having them secure the spot now,” he said, “They can watch her schedule and manage what she does.”
What she is doing right now is continuing to pick up more medals. Around the same time the news of the Olympic team invitation came out, Howell was winning bronze at the European X games in France.
Turski scored 93.33 to win the event on March 21 for the fourth straight year. Norwegian Tiril Sjastad Christiansen, who beat Turski for gold at the Aspen X Games earlier this year, took the silver medal at 90.66, edging Howell’s 88.33 on the final run in the best-of-three competition.
Howell, who’s signature cork (off-axis) 720 has been called “the best in the field” by freeskiing legend Mike Douglas, said it was actually her rail game that made the difference on the three-rail, three-jump course.
“I’ve never had that much fun on rails, but I was training them here the last couple of days and it seemed to go pretty well so I decided to try a couple of new tricks in my competition run because I figured I had nothing to lose. My coaches Toben (Sutherland) and JF (Cusson) are always pushing me to get better at my rails and so today I actually did two rail tricks I’ve never done in competition,” said Howell.
The new tricks Howell referred to were a ‘270 on’ (jumping three-quarter of a twist to get on to the rail) and a front flop to switch out’ (jump on the box sideways and then turn on the box and jump off backwards).
Turski’s win in Tignes, a platinum event on the Association of Freeskiing Professionals’ World Tour, leaves her firmly in the lead in the 2013 slopestyle rankings with 4603.35 total points, ahead of Howell with 4364.70 and Christiansen’s 4230.78. The official winner will be declared at the AFP World Championships at Whistler in April.
— With files from the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association.
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